The present invention relates to improvements in apparatus for transporting cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, filter rod sections or analogous articles which form part of or constitute rod-shaped smokers' products. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for transferring rod-shaped articles (hereinafter called cigarettes for short) between a station where the articles move lengthwise in a single file and a station where the articles move sideways and form one or more rows.
It is already known to utilize in or with a cigarette rod making machine a transfer apparatus which converts a single file of plain cigarettes issuing from the machine into one or more rows wherein the cigarettes move sideways, e.g., into or through a filter cigarette making machine. The cigarette rod making machine can produce up to and in excess of 70 plain cigarettes per second, and the single file of cigarettes issuing from such machine is normally converted into two rows wherein each cigarette of one row is coaxial with and spaced apart from a cigarette of the other row so as to provide room for insertion of a filter rod section of double unit length. The aligned cigarettes are thereupon connected to the filter rod section therebetween by an adhesive-coated uniting band which is convoluted around the filter rod section and the adjacent inner end portions of the respective plain cigarettes to form therewith a filter cigarette of double unit length. The latter is thereupon processed in the customary way, i.e., it is severed to yield two filter cigarettes of unit length, one of the thus obtained cigarettes of unit length is turned end-for-end and the cigarettes are thereupon tested prior to introduction into storage or directly into a packing machine.
As a rule, the speed of cigarettes which form the two rows of cigarettes in a filter cigarette making machine is less than the speed of lengthwise movement of the single file of plain cigarettes at the discharge end of a cigarette rod making machine. Therefore, the apparatus which transfers cigarettes from the cigarette rod making machine to the filter cigarette making machine must pick up successive plain cigarettes or pairs of coaxial cigarettes at a high speed and deposit the picked up cigarettes onto a drum, belt conveyor or an analogous transporting device on which the cigarettes move sideways at a lower speed. A transfer apparatus which can perform such function is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,303,926 to Pohl. The patented apparatus uses a set of planetary units which orbit about a stationary sun gear and carry eccentric crank pins for pneumatic pick-up heads. The heads travel along an epicycloidal path and are oriented by means of additional gears so that each thereof is parallel with the cigarettes of the single file at the pick-up station and with the flutes or like receiving means of a conveyor at a delivery station. The conveyor transports the cigarettes sideways. The apparatus of Pohl exhibits a number of drawbacks, especially as regards its complexity, proneness to malfunction, and noise level. Moreover, the mass of moving parts is so great that the apparatus operates properly only up to a certain speed which is less than that necessary to accept the entire output of a modern high-speed cigarette rod making machine. The planetary units and the orienting gears for the pick-up heads must be constructed and assembled with an extremely high degree of precision, and all moving parts must be mounted in expensive bearings.